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Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Matildas v Vietnam - AFC Women's Asian Cup Group Match 1

The latest news on the squad that is set to start the 2010 AFC Women's Asian Cup opener for Australia is this, Lydia Williams in goal, Melissa Barbieri on the bench. Defender Thea Slatyer will wear the captain's armband. And two wonderful stories in that Aivi Luik will play, completing the journey she set out to when she came back to Australia from America at the end of last year, with a goal to get into the Matildas, and so will Sally Shipard, who is back on the international stage after a two-year-break and a W-League season where she signed for Canberra United but couldn't play at all due to an international transfer hold-up.

Thanks for the update FFA, and go get-em girls!

So looks like I was rather off in my starting XI predictions, this is who is out there. Williams (GK), Slatyer (C), Colthorpe, Luik, Khamis, Butt, Shipard, Simon, Uzunlar, Reuter and Ledbrook. Six minutes in and going ok so far.

Game update: 29minutes, goal! Lovely Leena Khamis header. Matildas have dominated so far, but at times got caught up in Vietnam's tendency to just kick the ball around anywhere instead of to a teammate. Am watching the game via dodgy internet stream with no commentary, but at least it's on!

Half-time update: still 1-0 to the Matildas and they are looking very much in control, although at sometimes kind of uncontrolled. What do I mean? Well the Matildas are dominating, but there has been some errant passes and too many lost long balls. So still plenty to work on in the second half, but if they can, the goals should start to flood in.

4 comments:

Well we got the win. Plenty of positives, but our final pass selection & execution is definately in need of improvement. Kyah Simon played well, Teigen Allen & Sam Kerr gave us a bit of spark down the right-hand side. I thought Sally Shipard was a bit quiet, made quite a few mistakes when delivering the ball. Structurally, we got a bit congested in the oppositions penalty box a few times, leaving noone on the edge to pick up any rebounds. Our wide players didn't receive enough ball, instead we chose to play the ball through the middle into traffic. Overall, a decent start to the tournament, but would that performance have beaten Korea or China?

Good point Ann. Let's hope our first XI is raring to go. But what's interesting is the other game in Group B last night, Korea Republic and China drew 0-0. Good news for the girls there. Not only because we have 3points and they both have 1, but simply for the fact that neither team could score.